[ExI] Double-Earth (Was: kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets)

[Adrian Tymes]

On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 7:23 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

> Perhaps the remarkable thing here is that with all the ice on this planet,
> there are no known (to me) life forms that use it in its solid phase.
>

I can think of one species - homo sapiens - but even then it's mainly used
as an external tool (e.g. to build shelters out of, or to remove heat from
some part of the body), not evolved biological processes.  (Though it is
sometimes solid when ingested, internal heat renders it liquid before
absorption.)


> One would think there would be a snow eater somewhere.  Clearly it
> wouldn’t be to extract energy from the water (ground state compound) but
> rather some kind of life form that can plant itself in snow and use
> sunlight.
>

Would not life in such a region, have enough sunlight that the snow would
often be melted?  Or if there was not that much sunlight, might it be too
little sunlight to sustain life?  (Assuming plant life, in areas with
year-round snow.)
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